Tag Archives: Mediation

This workbook is designed for basic mediation training. Authors Scott Hughes, Mark Bennett, and Michele Hermann take NITA’s performance-based training for trial lawyers and adapt it to training for mediators. The Art of Mediation includes details that are often overlooked such as optimal seating arrangements during meetings. The excerpt and graphic below take a look at that section of this book.

Excerpt:

Some mediators prefer to work around tables, others do not like to use them unless absolutely necessary because they form a barrier between people. If the mediation requires reference to objects or documents, it may be inconvenient to work without a table. For more relational mediations, tables can be physical and psychological components that keep people apart or help people feel more secure.

Chairs should be positioned so that everyone can see and hear other participants easily. We prefer to keep a distance between the chairs of the parties, which prevents them from leaning and touching or gesturing at the other party in threatening or offensive ways. We also want the chairs of the parties to be at an angle to each other so they can easily make eye contact but are not in a confrontational face-to-face physical position.

In large group sessions, semicircular seating arrangements facing a wall on which flip chart pages are posted are often helpful. When observers are present but not participating at the table, a “fish bowl” offers a logical and effective format, putting the participants in the center and the observers around them.

If you are interested in purchaing a copy of this book, you can find it in print and as an eBook in EPUB and MOBI formats.

At a program I participated in this week (my part is summarized in the two posts below on choosing a mediator) co-sponsored by the Santa Monica Bar Association, one of the panelists, mediator Mark Fingerman, gave an informative presentation on mediation ethics. The problem of ensuring that mediations are conducted in a fair and ethical manner is complicated by strict protections for mediation confidentiality that exist in California. While confidentiality is generally agreed to be necessary to the process, prohibitions against introducing evidence of misconduct alleged to have occurred during mediations can potentially give free rein to attorneys—and mediators—to pressure or deceive parties into agreeing to settlements to which they might not have agreed otherwise. In fact, mediation seems in some ways designed to encourage parties to let down their guard and trust one another, and that trust may not always be justified.

Fingerman noted that other than the intrinsic satisfactions derived from acting as a moral and ethical person, there do not seem to be many effective tools available to prevent fraudulent conduct that may induce parties to enter into a settlement agreement. He did, however, suggest one possible safeguard, a common technique used in corporate deal-making, which is to include in the settlement agreement a recitation of any important representations upon which the parties relied, and warranties by the parties making the representations. Such statements in a written settlement agreement are not shielded by mediation confidentiality. So if any of those representations can later be shown false, the aggrieved party at least has the opportunity to set the agreement aside.

Can we design other effective safeguards to prevent coercion and fraud from tainting settlement agreements arrived at through mediation without unduly threatening confidentiality? Somehow, parties have to be given adequate time and space to make sure they are not making agreements they will regret in the morning. But it is often only after a long, grueling day that has made all the participants tired and confused that the parties’ own counsel, and frequently the mediator, urge them to make the final concessions necessary to get a deal done. Under such conditions, they may not have the time or capacity to think through their decisions, and they may be swayed by false information. But if we were to build in a cooling-off period, or allow parties to rescind their agreements within a number of days, we would have to accept the fact that a lot of settlements would come unraveled, and in most cases that would not benefit the parties.

Does this mean that mediation is an inherently flawed process, as opposed to the traditional justice system, with its many rules and procedures designed to prevent fraud and coercion? Perhaps, but the traditional justice system doesn’t always do such a great job of preventing or policing fraud either. Let’s start with the fact that there is an awful lot of fraud out in the real world. It doesn’t just exist in the conference rooms where settlement discussions are held. Victims of fraud—probably the number one crime in the world in terms of both economic impact and occurrence—are often told when they call the police or the district attorney that the department doesn’t have the resources to pursue this crime and that fraud victims should handle it as a civil matter. But if they resort to the civil justice system, victims of fraud find that the courts set a high bar for pleading and proving fraud, that judges and juries tend to blame the victims of fraud for their losses, and that they are often reluctant to compensate them. I have frequently had to remind victims of fraud just how difficult it is to prove those claims and obtain adequate compensation.

Not only is it difficult to prove fraud in court, court opens up opportunities to commit even more fraud. It should not shock anyone to learn that witnesses sometimes lie under oath. Whenever a jury has to choose between two diametrically opposed stories, it’s likely that one side or the other is lying. But the legal system rarely prosecutes such perjury. And sometimes the trier of fact accepts the wrong story.

Remedies for fraud and coercion are difficult to obtain in mediation as well as in the traditional justice system. Sometimes fraud will occur in mediation just as it sometimes occurs in court. The most effective protections against fraud may still reside in being cautious to accept anything anyone tells you at purely face value, while trusting at least to some extent in the innate desires of most of us to try to do the right thing most of the time.

Joe Markowitz is a mediator and trial lawyer with an office in downtown Los Angeles. He has more than 30 years of experience representing clients in intellectual property, employment, and other commercial disputes, and about 20 years of experience conducting mediations both privately and referred by the federal and state courts. Mr. Markowitz currently serves as president of the Southern California Mediation Association.

Trial skills will enhance your ADR skill-set. During the month of January we have focused on bridging the gap of disconnect between the two practices, and we have shown how developing great trial skills can make you better in mediation, arbitration, and negotiation.

For the final post in our Alternative Dispute Resolution series, Karen M. Lockwood, NITA’s Executive Director joined me in studio71 to answer a few final questions on the correlation between the ADR skill-set and the Trial skill-set. Karen has over 30 years of experience in the legal industry. Her specialties include construction litigation, commercial disputes, large disaster cases, antitrust, trademark and copyright, and ADR. She has been on the American Arbitration Association Commercial Panel since 2004. Karen was an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law in ADR at the American University of Washington College of Law as well as a faculty member and program director at multiple NITA trail skills programs.

We hope that this five-part series has helped you bridge the gap between trial skills and ADR, and that you have learned that trial-skills are in fact very important in the practice of ADR. We also hope that this series has helped you be less afraid of trial.

As part of our ADR series, this month’s book report will highlight a textbook that supports and educates legal professionals involved with Alternative Dispute Resolution. The Mediator’s Handbook is a NITA favorite, and a book that covers all aspects of mediation and ADR.

This book is broken down into stages, to better separate and explain the mediation process. The stages include the Initiation and Preparation Stages, the Introduction Stage, the Problem Statement Stage, the Problem Clarification Stage, the Generation and Evaluation of Alternatives Stage, and the Agreement Stage. These stages are prefaced and summarized with introductory and conclusive chapters as well. The Mediator’s Handbook also includes lengthy and convenient Appendices, which provide the reader with helpful checklists, guidelines, examples, and models of mediation-related processes.

The Mediator’s Handbook discusses the basics of mediation; communication skills; pre-conference, conference, and post-conference duties; and hybrid and non-mediation processes. Author John W. Cooley has used his years of experience as a government and private practice mediator to create a book that relates to legal professionals of all capacities, including:

Mediators and lawyers who are involved with litigation and non-litigation disputes

Organizers and participants of Continuing Legal Education programs

Teachers and students of law courses on mediation, mediation advocacy, or ADR, and

Advocates who represent clients in mediation.

To order your copy of The Mediator’s Handbook, 2nd Edition, go to lexisnexis.com. You can review more of NITA’s mediation and ADR books here.